I successfully juiced and strained 5 gallons of pear cider. I could easily have made 15 gallons more. Tasted really good as fresh pear juice. I may just have to keep some fresh in the fridge too. OG was 1.043 after pasteurization at 160 ºF. Cooled to 80º and added 2.5 tsp of pectic enzyme and stirred. Let it cool further outside for several hours and pitched a pack of Nottingham dry yeast at 65º. Still not actively fermenting at 12 hours after pitching yeast.
Has it started up yet? Ciders start much more slowly than beer. A day or two wouldn’t surprise me. Perrys may be even slower. They also tend to have a higher pH than apples, I’m not sure how that affects start of fermentation. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Did you aerate after heating it? And you might want to add nutrients, especially if you start smelling sulfur.
Started 24 hours later. I’d swear it is bottom fermenting with Nottingham. No surface activity, but clear yeast activity on bottom with heavy airlock activity.
Im jealous, i really want to make Perry but dont have the equipment to juice pears. As an aside when it comes to your process, you dont need to pasteurize with heat. IMO you are better off treating with campden tablets. Heat can change the aroma and taste of raw juices so i stay away from that. i have done this with unpasturized apple cider to great effect.
Hope it comes out great!
Jeff
I wanted to avoid sulfites and some of the pears had black spots inside them. I’m not wanting vinegar either.
I still had a ton of pears left and could not give them away, so I juiced another 5 gallons. This time they were a bit too ripe and prone to mush rather than juice. I used 5 crushed campden tabs with this batch and pitched yeast (Nottingham) at 68ºF. Waited a day for good yeast activity and moved to basement at 58º to ferment over the winter. OG was 1.054.